Testimony on discrimination #2

Milcah is the mother of a large family. Her 7 children were taken away from her for several weeks.

As a Christian missionary for La Famille, we have been led to travel a lot and we have sometimes experienced difficulties in countries which were more or less welcoming. But I have to say, as a French citizen, that it is on French soil that I have had my most traumatizing experience.

It was in June 1993 and that moming, at 6 a.m., we were suddenly woken up as our house was surrounded by 50 members of the police force, armed to the teeth with bullet-proof jackets and police dogs. They violently knocked at our door. In a few seconds, the occupants were immobilized in each room and threatened with semi-automatic weapons. The policemen obviously expected to find us armed and dangerous, yet we are against violence in all forms. I wanted to rush to comfort my 4-year-old daughter who was sitting on her bed crying with her amis towards me. I was violently pushed back on my bed and yelled at while a–woman with a uniform took my daughter by force from the bed she was holding onto. At the same time my daughter could see us in handcuffs and under threat of amis. All the children of the house were sent up to the policemen’s wagon in their paj amas.

During the 48 hours of close watch and interrogations, where we were accused of the worst things, we were told lies to make us weaker and to make us confess things we were not guilty of. I was insulted, demeaned, spoken to in a gross manner and alter eight hours of arrest I was hardly allowed to have a sandwich and a coffee. During the interrogation, I could not find out what was happening to my children. I was worried as I have a son who had a high fever the night before. The children underwent several examinations from pediatricians, gynecologists, psychiatrists and psychologists. At the time, my daughters were 6, 11 and 13 years old. Today, they still think of these humiliating examinations as a nightmare. They were told all kinds of horrible things about their parents: that we would not see them again, that we did not love them and would never try to see them again. They were placed in a State institution and it took a month to get them back.

Testimony#4 Paris March 3, 2000

Celeste, who grew up as a child in « The Family » talks about this and her friend Maria, who at the age of 11 was one of 80 children subjected to a police raid.

Maria is now 18. She is not here because she has bad memories of France and because she did not want to talk of all this again. Every time we talk about this period of the raid, she becomes silent and prefers not to talk about it.

As a person born and having always lived in these surroundings, I find it depressing to read broadcasts and texts such as the parliamentary report. I can tell you loud and clear that as a child brought up inside ‘La Famille’ I was never sexually abused.

Our parents have succeeded in obtaining a judgment proving their innocence but one has to take into account the fact that every time you tell someone you are a child born in ‘La Famille’, people look at you in a strange way.

I am trying to say that it is not correct at all to have to grow up with this kind of reputation when you are simply a normal individual.

Testimony~#5 Paris, March 3, 2000

Anne is an athlete at an international level. She’s also a traîner in a sports club. She was subjected to harassment by the government’s sports administration.

Sport is my passion. When I was 13, I was the French champion in the 80 meters hurdles, then later, several times in the 100 and 60 meters hurdles. At 17, I was placed third in the junior European championship. At that time I decided to go to Paris, to the INS–the National Institute of Sports–for intensive training. And then, in 1985 my international career as a senior took off. I came third in the indoor world games in Bercy’s stadium, then firth in 1987 at the world championship, always in the 100 meters hurdles.

Around Christmas 1987, I was summoned by the high-level athletic director at the INS. At the end of our conversation, he told me, « If I ever hear anything concerning you about Scientology, and if you ever speak about it, you will be fired from the INS. »

I saw he was looking at a lot of documents scattered about his desk, but I don’t know what they were or what they contained. When this happened, I was a new Scientologist. Apart from my close friends I had told no one about it. Then he wamed the physiotherapist school of Saint-Maurice where I was studying. Again, I was summoned by the director who made the same remark. My behavior was liable for disciplinary measures from the council of discipline and he wanted to hear nothing from me.

I carried on with my sports career, winning the quarter final at the 1988 Olympic Games and taking other medals in the European championships. In 1990, there were new incidents as a member of the [Sports] Ministry first came and warned the director of my Club in Clermont-Ferrand to which I had always remained loyal. Then the same person warned my traîner.

For ten years, I’d been considered by people around me as « the victim of a cuit. »

Alter the end of my career in 1995, I decided to train young people. I started at the Paris University Club, then I decided to also train young athletes in a club in the Paris suburbs. At that time, I was asked by the Ministry of Youth and Sports to participate in a commission on law reform for sports in France. I took part in the first meeting but a few days later received a phone call from a member of the Ministry, whom I knew, who told me he had been asked to take me off the commission, as I am a Scientologist. He even specified it on the phone, « Officially say you don’t have time anymore, unofficially it’s because you’re a Scientologist. »

I was training two youngsters who were hopefuls for French championshîp titles. But this didn’t stop my club’s president firing me. I cannot train in my tocan any more. I regularly meet young people in the street who corne to me saying, « You must corne back, please corne back! » and I have no answer for them.

CAP Liberté de Conscience, a French NGO created in 2000 dedicated to the respect of the Right of Freedom of Religion and Belief. CAP LC is expert since now 20 years, in religious minorities’ discriminations in France and Europe. CAP Liberté de Conscience organizes events, conferences, meetings to unite minority religions to counter discrimination mainly in France but also in Europe and worldwide.